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ARHIV DOGODKOV | KONTAKTI | KONFERENCE |
| KDO SMO | STIPENDIJE | OGLASNA DESKA |
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The
Power of Good-Bye
By Igor Spanjol The long-time art production of Lujo Vodopivec is marked by changes, layering of states and images. Countless works (traditional modernist statues, minimalist forms, plastic composite sculptures) and precise strategic aspects of the spatial arrangements, which always indicate the compulsory change of the premise for the interpretation of the work, or opening new issues in the art of sculpture. Vodopivec’s retrospective of 1999, apart from the self-critical revision of selected works from his past artistic periods and the reassessment of their presence in the present time, ironic dissociation from the oeuvre already thoroughly imbued with dissociation, signified above all a glad encounter of two parallel productions: the eminent gallery production and the commercial mass-oriented production. The artist playfully juxtaposed the orthodox sculptural aspect with the other, everyday reality, effectively bringing into the spotlight the technological issues of the art of sculpture through the key relationship between consumer goods of industrial origin and the statue as merchandise – namely, the problems of the material and the combining of assorted items. At the time of the retrospective, Vodopivec devoted special attention to the development of a thrilling scenario entitled Parcours, a humorous horse race in which a new context of motion and fences determined different functional relations of the bronze bulks of the extremely popular and commercially successful horses. "We move the elements around so that we feel better, so that we feel relieved," is Vodopivec’s comment of the challenging determination of the spatial dimension of the four stations of the Parcours. The artist assertively decided to lead his horses around the gallery with the help of a forklift. The purpose was that various visitors who are fond of horses were given the opportunity to become personally involved in the gallery event. In order to achieve an intense experience and interpretation, it was therefore necessary to exhibit reality and not simply a good statue. The functional opening of the statue, i.e. its interconnection with other fields, is a clear indication of eliminating authorial possessiveness, which has been gradually disappearing as the end of the twentieth century approached, along with the old autonomous subject and artistic work. In this, Vodopivec does not use the ready-made method in the Duchamp anti-art sense, but rather in the Warholian sense, aims to expand the concept of art to all "nice things" which surround us and which deserve more attention. The artist is especially interested in the context of his own work and this is why the lucid rearrangement of his past work into new meaningful compositions exceeds the situation of artistic decision and reaches into the field of curatorship as a form of contemporary archeology of searching, purifying, and finally selecting the displayed items. The employed strategy is obviously in conflict with the additive work method which Vodopivec normally uses, whereby statues are made by assembling and adding various materials but is based on purely banal, spatial problems of managing, storing, transporting and keeping the vast mass of sculptures. Vodopivec has extended the plump bronze statue of a horse into an installation with elements of naturalistic self-irony and industrial design. The displayed moment (actually, the layout of the fourth and final station of the Parcours) surpasses the static, historical and commercial captivity of the statue organism. The horse, parked on a base, which is an effective, manually movable cart on wheels, in front of a colorful fence, is straining to expand in breadth. Everything is full of tension, expectation and uncertainty, expecting the event that never comes. As usual, the statue occurs elsewhere, or rather somewhere between the sensibility of mass and the relatively open space which it occupies, between the principle of the torso and the inevitable compromises of the optimal realization of an abstract idea, between the masterful sculptural animalism and the illusionist pop-artism of everyday realities. The physical, as well as the conceptual equilibrium of the sculpture, is balanced - and this is why, at the same time, the metaphor of the jump-over symbolizes the moment of stopping – one of the key aspects which were the focus of the artist’s interest during the nineties – the assertive arrival at the point where you stop and must go elsewhere, to explore new frontiers. |
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Vse pravice
pridrzane: Zadnja
sprememba: Junij 2002 |
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©2002
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Tezave
s to stranjo sporocite na info@sloaus-inst.com
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